Month: April 2012

Mystified by the post title? Well I am being sent so many red letters at the moment, asking me politely to pay bills that I simply do not have the money for.

The deficit of winter combined with the upkeep of my car and some financially dissapointing trading events has left me…well. I am not quite sure how to rectify the situation. I feel like a bit of a failure on one level. My aim was to prove that I can live an artistically fulfilling and honest life whilst maintaining some sense of financial stability.

Realistically though, I know that things will get better. I also know that I am doing quite well on the whole, I am not equating my first world tribulations to a third world where children die every day from being hungry. I may lose some weight or have to sell some collectibles….not that big a deal really, hey?

I am approximately four hundred pounds short for paying bills this month, and I only got paid today. The bill estimation does not include expendables such as food or petrol. Happily Phil will be fed, the moglet need not worry about his tummy being empty. Captain Purky on the other hand shall be eating further reduced rations! (I am starting to quite enjoy tvp)

The very real possibility of spending a month being hungry is presenting itself.

Next weekend I am performing and trading so hopefully between the two of those enterprises I will have some of the dreaded paper stuff to deal with my creditors.

Make no mistake, I have no interest (geddit?) in not paying my way. To succeed in my own terms I simply have to make this work and every penny borrowed or owed must be repaid.

Once upon a time I would have decided I had to bury myself in work and deadly levels of overtime and that my chosen vocation was a fools errand.

At the moment, I believe that I have to work where I can, keep my dayjob ticking over, the bread and butter income. My rent will be paid from my wages, so I will be able to stay in my home. I also need to increase the revenue my company is taking and find a way to cut back my overheads further.

Also, I truly believe that the work I am producing is of the highest quality to have ever left my studio. If Purky is going to make it, then I cannot afford to back down now. I signed up for this.

Ahoy there chaps and chappettes, this is a quickie tutorial for you all.

I used to be very fond of mica powders, these are powdered pigments usually formed from mineral mica. They have a metallic sheen and come in dozens of colours. A few different brands exist.

I use pearlex mostly and have had the same three pots for around four years so they do last rather well with average use.

In a local craft shop – Yandles at Martock I found these beauties!

£12 for each packet of powders with a spray bottle and blending brush, bargain! I pretty much just splurged on them.

So, first mica lesson.

Condition your clay, this is rolled out on the thickest setting of my clay machine

Then for this version, trim your sheet and apply the powders

When your powders are fully applied blend 🙂

Pick your stamp

This one is an old favourite, I don’t use it often now for items I am making to sell, gotten a tad ocd but only using my own textures on commercial items.

However, imprint your stamp/texture plate firmly into the mica sheet. It is then ready to use however you want, for the purposes of these three tutorials I trimmed them up into rectangles and cured them.

I popped across to visit my Mother..well her grave but in emotional terms they are pretty similar things.

It was a few weeks before the Purky Party and I was feeling rather bouyant in myself.

The approach to her site

I was very happy to see her plaque and tree had been placed and planted. The tree is an english oak, it will grow strong and proud and possibly live for hundreds of years.

English Oaks support over 300 different forms of life in a symbiotic relationship, everything from birds who nest in the trees, squirrels eating the acorns to lichen and insects. Even when the tree eventually dies it will support different funguses and bacteria.

My Mum, while somewhat conservative in her attitudes on occassion was incredibly loving and supportive.

She used to love primroses. I have inherited that love and feel they are one of the greatest spring flowers. Their rosettes of leaves and flowers pushing up and unfurling. The bright flowers against the murky gloom of winter.

I wanted to plant the primrose for her, had I remembered in autumn I would have planted daffodil bulbs (another favourite) but instead I peeled back a piece of her turf and popped the primrose in. Blue was her favourite colour.

Et Voila 🙂 I felt rather good just popping and paying my respects. I don’t really talk to the space, I believe that once the electrical signals in the brain have faded the soul and true aspect of the person has left. My respect comes from visiting and maintaining the site.

The sun came around and it was time to leave. I felt the sun setting behind the tree was a lovely image and I went home to continue my art and get ready for the show.

Not just a fabulous song from the eighties but a fitting sumation of my mood today.

I managed to wake up at seven and be relatively bouncy, fed Phil got myself to work.

My car’s windscreen wipers have broken again, sigh but never mind.

Straight into Calista chair land and tedium but that wasn’t too much of a bother either.

I haven’t elaborated on how Cads & Bounders and the London Steampunk Market went but will do proper posts on those later this week. They were fantastic events for my confidence, networking and marketing but my business account is not looking too healthy. An artist’s life is about feast and famine (if they are moderately lucky) but I haven’t paid my gas bill, electric bill, phone bill or internet bill this month. The Purky Party did magnificently well and made enough to pay the previous months bills and pay for my car to be MOT’d and insured.

However, at about half past ten it felt like my bathtub of happiness had the plug pulled and everything drained away. It took about ten minutes but I was so subdued, tired and depressed. A fuse just went ping and the world was grey to me.

It took me by surprise and I think I need a few early nights to recuperate. Basically, Sunday was my first day off this month where I wasn’t working all day and night for Purky or my day job. I got more than 6 hours sleep as well which I though was enough to restore me but evidently I was wrong.

A few personal issues regarding past relationships have been dogging my subconcious as well as the state of my home and finances. These things can all be dealt with.

I truly believe in the path I am walking down and that I can succeed as an artist.

Lots of blog posts are coming up and I will get back on it soon.

I recieved a lot of wonderful support from my online friendship network and corporeal friends.